Harry managed to avoid any more unpleasant dreams after his night time wandering and when he was woken by his roommates getting ready for breakfast he felt well rested, he dressed in his study room and joined the other first years in the common room where Penelope and the other male prefect led them down to the great hall, once sat down he found made sure he was sat next to Penelope again as he still had questions about Hogwarts, as they talked Professor Flitwick passed along the time tables, he saw he had potions and transfiguration with the Hufflepuffs, he was quite pleased to have those two first as he had been unable to practice potions at the Dursley's and was looking forward to brewing an actual potion, so when Penelope leaned over to look at his timetable and said "Double potions first thing? Bad luck, Professor Snape hates everyone not in his own house, he's the one sat up there, next to Professor Quirrel." Harry wondered how bad Professor Snape could be if even a prefect like Penelope didn't like him.

After Breakfast was over Harry followed his roommates back up to the dormitory to pick up the needed supplies, he realised the cauldron was difficult to carry due to its weight and size, he willed his magic to make the cauldron lighter and put his supplies inside of it, then it was a simple matter of picking it up and going to the dungeons. Before he could leave the common room one of his roommates stepped up to him and said "Erm, Harry… Could you possibly do the same for my cauldron please."
Harry looked down and saw that the boy could barely lift his cauldron off the ground so willed his magic to make that cauldron lighter as well, as the magic left him he felt his own cauldron get slightly heavier and recognised he was almost at his limit and quickly left the common room before another student could ask for his help.

The boy he had helped rushed after him and when he caught up said "Thank you for helping, I'm a bit surprised that these cauldrons aren't made lighter anyway before you buy them, but that's wizards for you I guess, I'm Justin Finch Fletchly by the way"

Harry slowed to allow the boy to walk with him as it seemed nobody else was following him

"It's no problem, just don't ask me to make anything else lighter or I fear both our cauldrons will get heavier, I'm guessing you weren't raised in the wizarding world then?"
Justin smiled at being able to get him to talk and they spent the next few minutes talking about the muggle world, it was only once they reached the dungeons that Harry realised he didn't know where he was meant to be going, he turned to Justin and asked if he knew

"How would I know? I was following you as I thought you knew!"

Eventually they managed to find the correct door and walked in right as the man Penelope had identified as Professor Snape that morning started the register, he turned to them and snapped "names"

"Justin Finch Fletchly Sir"

"Harry Potter Sir"

"Ahh, Mr Potter, our newest celebrity" he drawled "Too important to turn up to class on time are you?"

"No sir, we got lost and-"

"Silence! I don't know what special treatment you are used to Mr Potter but you will get none from me, sit down." He turned back to the register then looked back up and said "Oh and that will be 20 points from Ravenclaw"

Once he had finished the register he got up and looked over everyone's equipment, when he got to Harry and Justin's cauldrons he stopped and waved his wand over their cauldrons

"Did you use magic on these cauldrons Mr Potter?"

"Yes sir? They were heavy and we couldn't lift them"

"Perhaps you should have gotten lighter cauldrons then? These cauldrons are useless now as your magic will soak into the potion and make is useless, I must say it is quite an achievement to have failed a potion before even arriving in the lesson, I may make a plague for you, would you like that Mr Potter?"

"No sir, sorry sir"

"You may as well make the potion with the rest of the class, it will act as proof as to why you do not use magic on the cauldrons"

When Snape moved away Harry concentrated on his magic within the two cauldrons and drew his magic out of them, the table groaned under strain presented to it but held firm, Harry turned to Justin and whispered "I've removed the magic from our cauldrons, hopefully it won't affect the potion now"

Justin turned out to be a good partner and when Professor Snape told everyone to finish and bottle up their potions Harry felt confident in the quality of their potion, once handed in Snape then called out "Gather round, we will now see how poor Potter's potion ended up, if it was brewed correctly with no outside interference then it would extinguish the match, however as it had outside interference it will instead catch fire"

He waved his hand and summoned a large matchstick from thin air, Harry could feel magic responding to the Professors command and was reluctantly awed by such a casual display of power, Snape then gave the match a slight flick and the tip caught fire, he lowered it over the flask and once it entered the neck gave of a 'woof' sound and the flame went out, the class started to applaud before silenced at a glare from Snape, he said "Class dismissed, Potter stay behind"

Harry nervously waited until the last student left where Snape waved his wand and the door slammed shut "Was that your own work from your own cauldron Potter or did you cheat as I suspect? If you admit to cheating now I will be lenient, if you lie to me be sure I will find out and you will be punished heavily"

"No sir I didn't cheat, after you said my cauldron still had magic within I drew it out of the cauldron so that it couldn't contaminate the potion"

"You have such control over your magic you can move it to and from something as dense as a cauldron? I do not believe you, I admit being able to cast a lighting charm is impressive but not unheard of, a first year having better control over his magic than most seventh years? No, you have one more chance to say the truth Potter"

Harry started sweating he didn't want to lose his house anymore points and so said "What if I show you Professor?" Snape blinked at him which Harry took to mean yes and drew as much magic as he could and forced it into his cauldron back at his place across the classroom, his aim was to only make it lighter but due to his over eagerness he overpowered it so that the cauldron started floating upwards, he then pulled his magic out of the cauldron causing it to drop instantly and smash into the desk, Harry winced as he didn't think through what he was doing, luckily Snape was too busy reassessing his image of the boy to properly notice the damage done to his tables.

When Severus first saw the Potter boy he assumed he was just like James Potter, the boy gave of a similar air of confidence, it was a surprise to see him sorted into Ravenclaw but when he turned up late for his lesson Severus assumed that the boy didn't care for lessons the same as his father, that was proven in his mind when he felt traces of magic in the cauldron, then the boy went ahead and brewed a near perfect potion! He doubted even he could have made something so good when he was eleven, however Severus remembered that in his first potions lesson Horace Slughorn had proclaimed that Lily had made a perfect potion too… Perhaps he was wrong to judge the boy on the actions of his father when he seemed to take after Lily.

When Severus was eleven years old and being sorted the hat had seen the ambition and drive within Severus and sorted him into Slytherin where he learned how to fine tune his ambition and learn the subtle art of cunning, Severus saw an opportunity in the boy, a chance at undoing the damage he unintentionally inflicted upon Lily, at first he would wait and be patient, to ensure the boy was genuine, if he turned out more like Lily than James he would take him under his wing, he hated James, but here with Harry was everything he desired, something to remember Lily by, a way to fulfil his life debt to the Potter family and a way to get some small revenge against James, Severus felt that James had stolen Lily from him and now he had the chance to "steal" Harry.

Looking down at Harry he saw a part of himself looking back, if he had any complaint with training the boy he lost it the moment he made eye contact, knowing he would have the other first years anytime soon he said "Potter you may go" when the boy reached the door he changed his mind "One moment Mr Potter" He summoned a piece of scrap parchment and wrote a quick note to Minerva 'Held Potter back, excuse his lateness. - Severus' and handed it to the boy, when he took it he told Harry "If you could find a way to make a cauldron lighter without affecting the quality of the potion come to me, even if it's only an idea, people have been trying to make cauldrons lighter longer than even Professor Dumbledore has been doing potions, if you can get it to work… you would change everything, you may go."

Harry managed to find the transfiguration classroom on time by asking a ghost for direction, as she had the Ravenclaw emblem on her robes he felt safe asking her, when he got to the room he found Professor Mcgonagall taking register, he sat quietly and answered his name she glanced up at him over the register then continued, she then instructed them on safety precautions and then how she wanted them to change a matchstick into a needle, Harry thought he had avoided another teacher being annoyed at him for being late when she said "Mr Potter come up to my desk please"

After making sure everyone else was concentrating on their matchsticks she asked "Why were you late to my lesson Potter?"

"I was talking to Professor Snape, Professor. He gave me a note." He handed her the note which she quickly read before banishing it.

"Very well, you may sit down and get on with the lesson."

Once say down he looked at his matchstick, it would be a walk in the park for him to turn it into a needle, he had done far more than that at the Dursleys, he then remembered how both Professors Dumbledore and Snape had been able to pick up on his use of magic and figured he may as well use the lesson to try and mask his magic, he concentrated on what he wanted to happen and planned how it would change from a wooden matchstick to a metal needle, he then wondered how he would mask his magic, he assumed a good way would be to use as little magic as possible, as such he tried to push the barest amount of magic, the matchstick became a little more pointy at the end but didn't change fully to his disappointment, he then tried to pull his magic out of the matchstick and found he couldn't, surprised he concentrated on turning his "magic sight" back on, immediately a flood of colour filled his vision, he focused on just the matchstick and forced the other colours away, the matchstick glowed a pale red, looking around he saw every matchstick was the same red, looking at Mcgonagall she glowed the same red so he assumed she must have summoned the matchsticks, when a student had some success changing their matchstick their own magical colour coated the red, looking at his own matchstick despite the fact he had changed it he couldn't see his own green, excited he tried to change it again with a little more power this time, a tendril of green left his wand and embraced the matchstick before soaking into it, now there was a faint coating of green over the red but it was almost invisible so that the red still shone through, if anyone where to glance at it they might just assume it was a weird shade of red, in the real world Harry's matchstick was now a metal needle.

Unaware of his surrounds due to being lost in thought he missed Mcgonagall's look of shock at how he had managed to change it despite using less magic than anyone else in the room, as someone who has spent so much time around magic and people casting magic sensing ambient and active magic was basically an unwritten requirement to teaching, if she didn't know better she would say that the magic Harry had just cast would put him just over that of a squib, yet he had completely changed the matchstick to a perfect needle, it even looked sharp enough to go through leather, Hermione Granger was the only one to equal the feat of having a perfect needle but she had forgotten to make the tip sharp enough to actually function.

When Mcgonagall had watched the girl change her own matchstick she had been amazed at the level of control the girl had displayed, normally first years started by just throwing their magic at a problem until it just worked, it was later in their schooling that they learned true control, even some adult wizards used that brute force approach to magic, despite Hermione's own achievement Harry put Hermione to shame with his control that could have rivaled Minerva's own level of control, she started to suspect why Severus had held Harry back if he had shown the same level of skill in his own lesson.

Making a mental note to bring up Potter in the staff meeting after dinner she awarded him 15 house points and went back to helping the rest of the class, she watched him as he reverted the needle back into a perfect match stick and then back into a needle, each and every time was perfectly formed but he was using less magic until she couldn't even tell he was using magic, it was like he just looked at the matchstick and it bent to his will of its own accord, she was quite awed as she doubted she could have every attempted that feat when she was in school, she wondered just how strong the boy was currently and what he could do after he finished his schooling, she dismissed the class and once everyone had left she locked her door and summoned her bottle of scotch she kept hidden under her desk, she considered getting a glass but then just drank it from the bottle, she had a lot to think about and had a whole free period to mull over the mystery that is Harry James Potter.

If anyone wants a good song suggestion I suggest Lost in the Rhythm by Jamie Berry, listened to it a lot writing this and the next chapter.

Something fun I noticed in the document editor, some spellings that are perfectly accepted in google docs are wrong according to Fanfiction's spell checker, such as "Hermione" wanting to become "Thermionic", as Hermione is an actual name I wonder why the site would want to change somebodies name to a science 'thing'...

I realised after sometime after this chapter went live that Justin was a Hufflepuff, I talk about it more in the next chapters notes but for now, yes I am aware he isn't in his cannon house.